I haven’t used Safari for a long time, there was a point when something was changed and I switched to a mix of Firefox and Orion.
On my M2 MBAir with 15.2 Sequioa I am finding the Safari icon on the Cmd - Tab app switcher bar almost every day without knowingly launcing it.
It is not set as my default browser and is not in the Dock so I don’t know how I can be launching it. It doesn’t become an active in-foreground app with a window when it launches.
Any ideas how to prevent it from launching or what could silently launch it?
Did you subscribe to notifications from some web site? That might cause it to background-launch in order to receive and present these notifications.
Check to see if you have any website notifications and remove anything you find. See if that changes anything.
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Thanks for the idea @Shamino , I checked the link instructions and I already had no notifications allowed and allow to ask unchecked.
While in the Websites Settings I checked the other… whatever they’re called, modules or what, along the left side and all were ‘turned off’ as I would put it but the language and positive/negative varies.
It seems to be quite difficult to identify “start up” items with macOS these days. For example Carbon Copy Cloner is there whenever my Macbook Air boots up (but cannot find a destination disk!) and I cannot find a setting/file to disable this.
Firefox is my default browser, but if I click a link in an e-mail, sometimes Mail passes that request on to Safari and not Firefox. Don’t know why that happens.
@mpainesyd , look in “Login Items & Extensions” in Mac’s Settings, the section “Open at Login” might be what you’re looking for.
In CCC v7 Settings, the “Dashboard” tab allow user to start Dashboard on login or not.
Hope that helps!
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@drmoss_ca I see that in Reeder App I think, although I’d set a default browser other than Safari it was for while opening links in Safari, so I think this is not unusual these day as software gets more complex.
I am used to the activated App from a link opening in the foreground though, or at least having a window open.
The oddity I’m seeing is that I only notice Safari is running when I see it in the App Switcher, and if I switch do it, it has no open windows.
Maybe I can set up a Shortcut or something to play a unique or annoying sound when Safari launches so I can better analyze what’s going on. Hmph.
Just noticed it running again without knowingly launching it.
Empty Untitled window open. History page empty.
Sigh.
Ah - it (CCC) was there, listed in Login Items & Extensions. Thank you. I see your Safari issue is not resolved.
I have had a similar experience for a long time. I even tried the Level 2 clean install (there’s a thread on that). It didn’t resolve it, and it still happens from time to time. My feeling is that something triggers it and Safari relaunches several times over a period, but then it goes quiet for a while. I think that manually starting Safari is one of the triggers. I’ve just given up trying to fix it and just live with it.
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I just spent about 15 minutes looking in Shortcuts App to see if there was a way for the Mac to do something when Safari launches, like make a sound, flash the screen etc. but couldn’t find it.
I thought I had made one on an iPad, to play a sound when power was plugged in, I don’t remember what those things are called though, so couldn’t find it on the Mac version of Shortcuts and the Help files got too technical for my level.
(Brief-ish update)
I just noticed Safari running again when using the App Switcher. Switched to it, no windows open.
Then I checked Little Snitch to see what Safari was doing and it had made contact with ghostery.com and .net and configuration.apple.com.
I looked in Ghostery’s settings and there was nothing I could find indicating, perhaps, a regular check for updates.
In Little Snitch Internet Access Policy for the apple url it says’macOS establishes this connection to perform Rosetta 2 updates.’
Those were the only connections listed so I suppose since I am not using Safari now I can deactivate or remove Ghostery and see if that stops Safari launching on its own.
In Activity Monitor (I’m no expert at reading it) I searched for Safari and a bunch of line items under the five tabs showed various data points but no date/time so I couldn’t tell if the info was relevant.
In Safari Settings I see I have 1Blocker also installed in Extensions; it has a long list of entries of various capabilities with checkboxes on the left (Ghostery and ReadLater from Reeder are also in Extensions).
The checkboxes do what exactly? There is no column header and the pane on the right doesn’t help. I unticked Ghostery and the contents of the right pane changed but doesn’t indicate what happened: is it turned off? Paused? it isn’t removed as there is still an ‘uninstall’ button in the right hand pane…
(briefer update)
Safari was not noted to have launched itself for several days and I was getting ready to note Ghostery as the issue and the conclusion that those checkboxes are on/off switches.
But then I noticed Safari running again. Uninstalled 1Blocker and its Extensions and we’ll see what happens.
Little Snitch does not show any Safari activity in the last 24 hours.
(another update)
I’ve removed all extensions now except Reeder Read Later, which should be inactive as it is unchecked. But Safari Settings says I would have to remove my daily-used Reeder RSS reader app to remove the Safari extension.
Still I find Safari running with no windows open without having been launched by myself.
Can I prevent Safari launching somehow? make it show an approval window when it tries? I think it’s one of those not-allowed-to-delete Apps.
I searched Little Snitch again for Safari and found
com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.Service
was active around an hour ago. It has something to do with checking Google’s list of what is “Safe” to browse. Since I am avoiding Google as much as possible and don’t use Safari, I set LS to block this activity so we’ll see what happens now…
I suspect that whatever is launching com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.Service is starting Safari then going online so Little Snitch might not stop Safari launching.
You could try temporarily deleting com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.Service but I would guess the mysterious app will put it back.
The other option is to check the boot-up/login items:
(That Apple Support page is for IT managers - there are probably simpler ways to check login items)
Thanks for the ideas!
All I have in Login Items is:
- CCC Dashboard
- Dictionary
- EyeTv Helper
- LaunchBar
- NordVPN
none of which afaik would launch Safari. But that’s my ‘average user’ knowledge. If you can understand the page you linked to, I would believe whatever conclusions you draw on the subject!
I recommend LaunchControl. It displays a list of all the launch items running on your Mac. If you click on an item in the list, you will get more information about the item. As you can see, a lot more is going on that is not shown in the Login Items & Extensions list.
To understand what is going on launchd.info
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Dictionary can and does provide links to the web which, if triggered, could launch Safari. Try disabling it in Login Items and see if the problem persists. I don’t have Dictionary in my Login Items, although I use it occasionally, so I don’t think disabling it will have any negative impact.
(The only Login Item we have in common is CCC Dashboard; I don’t have the other software items installed.)
Thanks, I hadn’t thought of that, good possibility.
I haven’t knowingly clicked any links in Dictionary and I put it in Login Items to save launching it manually, as I keep it open all the time since I live in a non-english location and the local language is my 2nd, so I frequently need to look up words as I read or write.
Maybe it is doing something behind the scenes. Safari is not set as default browser, but still my RSS reader will open links in Safari although it has a setting for browser and I chose another browser.
Ah well.
Whoa! Thank You! Especially for the 2nd link, without which I’d have been even more lost!
I’ll look into this some more.
@paal, you do have good experience with the developer? Their website name could have a couple of quite different meanings, one of which would make me suspicious.